


Mind to Mind

by WinchesterNimrod



Series: Woe to him, Danny Torrance [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Doctor Sleep (2019), Doctor Sleep - Stephen King, The Shining - Stephen King
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24996061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinchesterNimrod/pseuds/WinchesterNimrod
Summary: Spencer Reid befriends a new member at his AA group who also happens to be a psychic working with local police. Fate never did bode well for him.
Series: Woe to him, Danny Torrance [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1809478
Comments: 11
Kudos: 61





	1. Start

According to his Omega Speedmaster Automatic wristwatch, it was forty minutes past ten in the evening. Making Spencer half an hour late for the AA group meeting held at the neighbourhood church.

Spencer arrived outside the production of gothic stone by taxi, paid the fare and rushed up the steps. Shoulder bag bucking against his hipbone and hair whacking his frost-bitten face as he barged politely as possible through door after door before arriving in a huff at the small meeting room. A cheap, simple reproduction of the ceremony hall.

Some familiar faces waved at him in greeting.

"Seldon," Father Pritchard raised a hand from the podium, "Wonderful to see you back."

Seldon, an identity borrowed from The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. A 1942 sci-fi classic. The main character's last name.

Spencer muttered something vague and sat himself down in the back row. Noticing a new face along it.

He saw the school bag bulging crests of books, clean shave, running shoes and ink on the crest of his palm most likely from study.

College freshman.

He saw the slight tremor and ticks everyone in this room had - signs of an addict.

One moment longer, Spencer looked away concluding; recovering alcoholic.

.

He sat there, listening to one fake-named person after another fake-named person speak about their life. What led them to drink, self-medicate, or other form of self-destruction. He sat, tender. The case he came back from was a bad one. Children and a sick mother.

When it was his turn to speak, Spencer found himself standing at the podium, fingers picking the edge of it and not saying much.

All he could think of was the mother's crying when she eventually confessed to killing off her children one by one.

.

It was a cookie that woke Spencer up. Factory produced chocolate chip. Gently placed onto a napkin as he stood waiting for his tea to brew.

"Looks like you need the sugar," was what the college freshman said. Kind or indifferent, Spencer couldn't nail down the droning tone. "Drake," the guy offered a hand.

Spencer took it, "Seldon."

"Listen to me, Seldon," Drake said, plucking out the tea bag in Spencer's cup and pouring the exact amount of milk he preferred. "Schizophrenia's a spectrum. Your mother was never like that lady from Michigan." Spencer watched Drake tear open four sachets of brown sugar, not white. "Trust me, you prefer brown over white you just haven't noticed it yet."

" _Excuse_ me?"

"You're wondering why I'm talking to you about this - well, I'm partial to the good guys. A weakness of mine," Drake shrugged. "I couldn't stand knowing you were hurting yourself with absurd thoughts about the past. I don't know much about psychology, but I know that _you_ know, your mother's not capable of it. And the quicker you break that cycle of thought the easier you'll sleep without the temptation of - I don't know if I'm saying it right, Diluded? _Dilauded_."

Oh… _right_.

Spencer closed his eyed and grubbed in self-pity. Why can't he ever have normal fans. "Are you some kind of stalker?"

"Nah," Drake snorted and handed him his cup. "I'm far too busy with my own fucked up life to stalk someone else's."

"A lot's possible with the internet these days," Spencer observed and sipped his tea. Disturbed at how good it tasted. Disturbed at _Drake_. "Anyone can stalk anyone in the comfort of their own home."

Drake's eyes widened, "Tell me about it. Real spooky shit. Oh, I'm not one of those quacks. I hardly know my way around a computer let alone a mobile."

Looking in his early twenties, and this being the 21st century, Spencer found that to be an extraordinary lie.

"Nah," Drake went on, "I can't really explain how I know this shit. I just do."

Spencer hid the grin behind the rim of his cup. "So, psychic then?"

"No - " he stopped and considered. "At least, not in that way."

"In what way?"

"In the way that I'm not some juju, fictitious crackpot."

.

Spencer asked Father Pritchard about Drake at the end of the meeting. Assisting in throwing out plastic cups and biscuit wrappers. Sorting away fliers, the coffee machine. Anything he could do to help the greying man.

"Drake?" Father Pritchard echoed. "That boy hasn't done anything wrong if that's what you're insinuating, Spencer." Dropping the alias.

Months back, Father Pritchard had assisted the BAU with a case in the neighbourhood, it's how Spencer discovered the AA program. He trusted the man's instincts - being a retired cop. Level headed and the like.

"I'm more curious about the other thing."

"Ah," Father's eyes sprung in recognition. "You mean his gift?"

"If you want to go with that, sure," Spencer said. "What's your take?"

"He's used it help a lot of people. Used it to find the pendant I thought I'd lost a couple years back. He's the real deal, Spencer - before I would have never truly believed. Never seen such a thing in all my years."

"I see," Spencer said and they lapsed into comfortable silence.

Spencer didn't believe for one second Drake had a gift the way Father Pritchard thought - perhaps extraordinary intuition and empathy skills with a hint of online stalking. Not a gift. If the guy ever chose to be a profiler, he could do a lot of good in the world.

Unfortunate waste of talent.

Spencer doesn't believe in that type of hoo-ha, no matter how much his inner child wanted to.

.

Two years ago a couple spotted him on the side of a high-way. Naked as the day he was born and fever hot to touch. Also giggling. Giggling and crying and hysterical like somebody had just loaded him with a bunch of narcotics and dumped him there.

The shining did something to Dan. Played him like a deck of cards or a pebble under the cup of a street magician. Flinging him from one place to the next. Round and round he went nobody knew where.

Suppose that's what the Shining does to spirits. Plays with them. Because now it can, now it doesn't have a body lining to protect it.

Somehow, for some ineffable reason, the pebble found a new home in a once empty cup.

.

Dan doesn't dislike his new appearance - simply, well….the drastic transformation was goddamn unexpected.

Being blonde isn't bad and the new height is very welcomed - only, he couldn't place this body's ethnicity. Definitely European with a mixture of whatever. He wanted to say Japanese but then again he also didn't want to be wrong and get called up for being an uneducated bigot.

One of these days this body's family will find him and Dan doesn't know what in the sweet holy hell he'll do.

He splashed cold water on his face to wash away those tedious thoughts he couldn't do anything about and patted himself dry with some paper towel. Continuing to go about his routine of working the front desk at the retirement home some nice lady at the hospital helped him land.

Who the fuck knows how it happened again, all Dan's thankful for is the money in his pocket.

.

Dan felt a wave of cold, oozing energy down the entrance hall and knew someone bad had arrived. Like a tumour had suddenly implanted itself in the threshold Dan had studiously kept clean.

He had taken care for the spirits. Locked them away in the cascades of the box in his mind. Cleaned the place up nice and pretty.

Dan huffed and greeted the nice girl at reception, clocked in and got to his rounds. Menial tasks that the dying are no longer capable of.

Throughout the hours he had managed to narrow the nauseating coolness down to a room. 10A.

The exact one Dan visited last night to help an elderly lady in her passing.

This place doesn't have an Azzie, though he had been in her company long enough to get a feeling for the imminent passing of a person. A slight, creeping heartbeat that deepens until you can no longer hear it.

"Hey, Sara," Dan leaned on the reception desk as to not disturb Fred on the phone next to her, "Hear anything about the guy in 10A?"

"Mr Creevy?" Sara asked. "He's new so not much, but word is he's pretty quiet. Hasn't spoken a word to anyone. Just breathes, which is a relief."

.

Dan decides to pay Mr Creevy a visit on his ending shift. He slips into the dreary room and takes a seat besides the bed Mr Creevy sits in. The man's old milky veined eyes stared him, thin lips letting out low breaths. The eyes glance up to those watching then back.

Surrounding Mr Creevy's bed were the corpses of strangers. Mr Creevy's victims.

Skin peeling and rotten. Dan rubbed his nose and looked back to Mr Creevy - Mr Creevy who was screaming. Or at least trying his darnest to.

Dan patted the elderly man's hand and reassured him;

"I'll take care of it."

.

"Doctor Spencer Reid? A friend of mine gave me your number, said you and your team might be able to help out. It's Detective Sandra Malone from Virginia PD, and I think we've got ourselves a serial killer."

.


	2. Middle

To Detective Sandra Malone, Dan was a walking encyclopaedia of weird. He was also the only link she had to a dying serial killer.

Not that she were one to brag about her own personal psychic consultant to the BAU. She wasn't that crazy.

At least not yet.

Which was why for now they - being the entire Virginia Police Department - were going to keep Dan all hush hush. Slap a sticker on him as an 'anonymous benefactor'. Happened to hear Mr Creevy confess his sins while taking care of him in the retirement village.

Sandra felt uneasy lying to people who sniffed this type of bullshit out for a living, but it was better than the alternative. Oh one hundred fucking percent better. Truth was, they were way _way_ out of their league with Mr Creevy. A man who had been killing on her territory for God knows how long.

If anything, she was doing the BAU a favour in keeping the headache that was the supernatural out of their clean cut world.

Or so she kept telling herself as she studiously drove Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner and Jason Gideon to the retirement home.

.

Dan toys with the empty styrofoam cup. Eyeing the police detail outside Mr Creevy's room. He knows them from glances on cases he's assisted in the past. One of them has flies on her face that wasn't there last week. He watches her scratch the side of her face. Fingers gliding through the buzzing omens of death.

He grows unsettling feeling it is connected to the very man she is guarding.

"Penny for your thought?" Sara prods the elbow Dan was leaning on the reception desk.

"Yeah," he says. Turning and face falling at the flies submerging her eye sockets.

"Dan?" He hears her ask, mouth opening. Flies crawling in and out. "You don't look very well."

"Um," Dan turns away. Beyond unnerved. Downright frightened. A churning began in him and it all led to that one man down the hall.

He looks towards the entrance. Sliding doors open. Eyes find Sandra. The tall, dark skinned woman marching in her pantsuit.

Acknowledgement nonexistent.

Right. The police department wanted him far away from the BAU. If the department could they'd slingshot him across the country to keep him away from anything 'official' looking. But as it were, he was the best thing they had to a two-way radio set on Mr Creevys' mind.

Following behind her were two incredibly official looking men. Whatever they hoped to gain on the catatonic serial killer, evident by their long strides and pinched expressions, would end up failing them miserably.

Sara touches his arm. "Maybe you should have a lie down."

He avoids looking at her and snatches the clipboard of a random resident file. Excusing himself and walking past the door where Sandra lets the two men in. He catches a glimpse of Mr. Creevy and his ghosts. One of them, an old little lady. Skin rubbery and flaked. Grey and dead, meets him.

The door closes, Sandra grabs his arm without word and tugs him into the dark broom closet. Dan has to blink when she tugs the rope of a single hanging lightbulb awake.

"Any news?"

"From Mr Creevy," he gathers and she nods. Impatient as a traffic light . "Nada."

"Get him talking then. Or at least, mind talking, telekinesis - whatever psychic mojo you have going on," she smacks the lightbulb away as it banged against her forehead. "I've got federal agents snooping around my police station asking questions about our anonymous benefactor and where the supposed bodies our allusive, right now _fictional_ serial killer hid. They'll either leave or make my career a living hell if I don't turn up something concrete for them."

When Sandra's anxious she has an unnerving habit of not blinking. Standing in this small broom closet with a swerving lightbulb and unblinking detective gives Dan the heebie-jeebies. And he lived in a haunted hotel for a hot minute.

"Right. I'll just gently ask the vengeful spirits to tell me where they're buried and hope they won't get offended."

"Much appreciated, Dan. Call me when you have the info."

His humour doesn't seem to translate well in to cop-talk because Sandra swoops out of the closet and leaves him with his tail in-between his legs.

For a stern minute, Dan has a silent staring contest with a pink feather duster. Materialising in its place appears the old little lady. Worms wiggling out from her eyes and nose.

In a wheezing, soil-clogged voice she speaks; "In the dirt, child."

Dan screams and topples out the closet. Sheer fucking terror turning his manly baritone into a shrieking gopher.

Not his finest moment, he'll admit - but he'd like to see anyone not turn into a little boy when an ugly ghost spits worms in your face.

The two officers who were minding the Creevy door stare and sigh. Knowing who he is and having seen Dan freak out here and there during cases. Accustomed to his flare of 'weirdness'. Falling out of a closet was the least crazy thing they've probably seen him do.

"Alright, there?" One fly-faced officer asks.

"Yeah, rosy." Dan hops to his feet and picks up the clip board. Glancing back at the closet. Empty and lightbulb dancing. He tries his best to look dignified, ignoring the one officer looking away. Shoulders shaking.

Creevy's door opens and Dan scurries down the hallway. Wincing.

.

He spent the rest of his shift waiting for the FBI to leave and willing the worm lady back to give him all the juicy details of her burial site. Sandra was panicking, and a panicking Sandra was a scary demanding Sandra.

This time toying with the vending machine for a packet of Cheetos, Dan observes the agents leave and swerves his way towards Creevy's room.

Ghosts gathered, he pulls up a chair and faces them.

"Would any of you lovely ladies care to tell me where you're buried?"

"In the dirt." The old worm one tells him. Earth pouring out of her mouth like water whenever she spoke.

"That," he strains a polite smile, "doesn't narrow it down. Sorry."

"In the dirt." She insists.

"I understand that. Where exactly is this dirt? In a forest, cemetery, garden -"

 _"In the dirt_."

Dan wasn't getting anywhere with this. He sighs. "Lady, please."

"In the dirt."

He throws his head back and tries again.

.

For not the first time that day, Spencer wondered why exactly he was here. There were no bodies. No evidence of foul play and no work for him to do. All Spencer could do was examine Joseph Johnson Creevy's life, whose history did fit the classic standards of psychopath cookie recipe, and drink buckets of caffeine to pass the time. There was also the case of who the anonymous tipper was and why the police here listened to him/her like a convent full of nuns do to the Good Almighty Lord.

Also why the tipper recommended him.

Here's a short list of possibilities;

knew of him from one of his lectures on criminal psychology A retired nosy police officer who had worked with them on a case Blah blah blah

"Blah, blah, blah," Spencer mumbles as he stirred his instant coffee with a popsicle stick. Watching the police station mingle about in monotony and Derek saunter over. Eyeing the coffee pots.

"Any clue who your stalker is?"

"Hah hah," he deadpans. "No better than who Creevy's supposed victims are."

Derek snorts, grapping a styrofoam cup for himself and pouring burnt coffee into it, "This case is definitely topping the list of the weirder ones we've dealt with, that's for sure. Where's the milk?"

Spencer tapped his heel against the mini fridge under the bench where Derek stood and asks, "Any news from Hotch?"

Now with milk, Derek sniffed it before pouring a decent amount into his drink. "Heading back now. Creepy-Creevy is catatonic as a coma patient."

Spencer frowns, biting the edge of his cup, "Then how'd the tipper know? Think they're related to Creevy, or a partner with a guilty conscience?"

"Put it on the list," Derek shrugs. "Where's the sugar?"

Spencer taps the cabinet above them with a finger. Derek follows and grabs two servings of sugar from a little box. Pouring and swishing it into his coffee with the wrappers.

"Bin?"

Spencer gives Derek a look. "I'm going back to work."

Officers make way for him as he finds his way back to the conference room leant for the case. JJ and Emily must be getting lunch for everybody seeing as they weren't there when he got back. Settling down into a chair, Spencer tucks loose strands of hair behind his ears and flips open the file they had of people working at the retirement home. A theory among many were that the tip came from one of the workers.

Emily and JJ had just got back with sandwiches from Subway and Derek was humming a pop tune when Spencer's eyes froze on a personnel file.

Blonde hair, dark eyes and the face of Drake, actually Dan Torrance, from AA Anonymous.

 _Anonymous_. _Stalker._

This is the part where Spencer wants to wish this was a coincidence.

Coincidence his ass.

.

The apartment Dan rents out is a fifteen minute bus trip from the retirement home, and Dan wants to fall asleep as he sits on the uncomfortable padded seat. This never happens. The phone ringing in his pocket sees to that.

Flipping it open because he doesn't have enough money to get one of those fancy touch-screen ones, Dan grumbles a hello.

"Are you the anonymous tipper for the supposed serial killer case I'm working on? And since you're a psychic I guess you know who I am."

Dan isn't psychic but he's smart enough to put two and two together on that sardonic voice.

"Heya Seldon. AKA, Spence," he smiles dozily out the window. The bus rolls to a stop. Picking people up outside a cafe. Just beyond he spots Spencer. The lanky federal agent dressed in one of those ancient sweater vests. Foot tapping and expression pinched. "Have you ordered already? I get the feeling I need to be awake for this conversation. I like vanilla in my coffee, order me a grande. I'll pay you back in a second."

As Dan bundles off the bus Spencer is staring at his phone as though expecting him to pop out of it.

"On your right."

Spencer does. His jaw falling to the ground. "You _are_ a stalker."

"Coincidence."

Spencer gave him a long appraising look. "Coffee. I need coffee."

.

They sit at an outside two seater table. Sipping coffee and exchanging odd looks.

"Before you say it you can't prove anything," Dan says all too easily. Casual grace one gets when dying and all that.

This doesn't bother Spencer. He's faces serial killers and rapists for a living. It would take more than a sick teenager to make him stutter.

"How do you know Mr Creevy?"

"I don't, I just watch over him. You know he's killed eighteen people," Dan tells Spencer. Sipping his coffee and watching the sun lower behind gift and retail shops. "Eighteen people, that I see."

Clearly Dan had mistaken himself for a protagonist in a sentimental horror film.

Understandably, Spencer was under no illusion that Dan suffered from some kind of mental illness. Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder; Spencer would have to discuss with a professional on the correct classification to work with, but he was also under no illusion that while this illness played out, Dan displayed brilliant deductive reasoning skills. There was no arguing with a sickness. Spencer had no other option but to…humour the boy. Against his instinct.

For a second he was ten and telling his mother to get off the roof - she couldn't fly. No matter how hard she insisted she could.

"Where did you see these victims?"

"They're haunting Creepy-Creevy."

Spencer swallows a shiver, having heard Derek use that exact rhyme with the exact inflection an hour ago.

"One of them, an old woman says they're in the dirt. Won't give me any other specifics. That's all I can say right now."

Taking a breath, Spencer nods. "Alright. Say I believe all that. And lets say hypothetically, you're the anonymous tipper, why bring me onto this case?"

.

The Shining lets Dan know things.

Dan knows Spencer thinks he's crazy. He also thinks he's a natural profiler who recognises humanity more than he'll acknowledge and projects that into a fantasy-world.

Dan rolls with it. Better having Spencer thinking that rather a serial killer framing an old man.

"You catch serial killers for a living." He ends up with. " _Duh_."

"That's all?" Asks Spencer. Unaccustomed to such…bland, to-the-point motivations. It was a surprising relief. Refreshing from all the underhanded, sly workings of people he encounters in his job. "Huh."

Allowing a smirk, Dan taps Spencers coffee cup. "I told you brown sugar was your preferred addition."

Spencer blinked, "How did you - " he pauses. Laughing at himself. "You're good."

Dan bows at the waist theatrically, looking back up breath looses him. The old little lady's wormy eyes stare back.

"We're in the dirt."

A elongated chipped fingernail comes up and taps his forehead like an icepick to the brain.

Gravity pulls him back in his chair and down into a grave. He lands hard. Hands and feet tied. Immobile, terrified and horribly cold. Dan can only watch as a young Mr Creevy drops soil on him. He wanted to scream but he couldn't. He was dead. Killed. Strangled and stabbed. He watches. Dirt catching in his opened, dead mouth.

Beyond his killer was a staircase leading to a door. Lit barely by the flickering lights on the ceiling.

Basement.

Mr Creevy's victims was in a basement. In his basements' floor.

Hands shake him and Dan can breathe. He's pulled up from the grave and back into daylight. Puffing and shaking. Dan can feel his blood and heart and the hands belonging to Spencer.

"How far is the ambulance?" Spencer asks someone.

"Five minutes."

"I know where they are," he tells the good doctor. Yes. Spencer was a Doctor and the shining tells him he's trying going through all sorts of diagnoses. Seizures. Hallucinations - he waves those shared thoughts out so he can _speak_. "They're in the basement."

"What?"

"Mr Creevy's basement." insists Dan. Shuffling into a seating position and slapping the well intentioned hands trying to keep him down. Back in the grave. "She showed me."

"The old woman," Spencer guesses. Belief vacant, but trust, Spencer trusted his deductions. Waveringly so. Guiltily so.

"Call your team," Dan's palm braces his chest. Heart running a mile a minute. That had never happened before, a ghost allowing him to see a scar of their echo. Never again if he helped it. "Tell them you got an anonymous tip. Hypothetically."

He catches Spencer's look. That wide, concerned and complex expression Sandra used to get on the first year of their unofficial partnership.

"I know you were going to ask to meet me here away from colleague eyes. You want to keep our tenuous acquaintance a secret, you're ashamed of talking about your addiction to your friends. I get it," he pats Spencer's hands clutching his arms, "Call them."

In the distance came the sirens of the ambulance.

Great reluctance, Spencer stares down a person looming behind Dan - presumably the one who called the medics - and orders them to stay with him. As the Ambulance rolls up and paramedics jaunt out, Dan sees Spencer talking into his phone.

Relieved to have finally settled the haunting of room 10A.


End file.
